Legal design is an innovative approach that combines legal expertise with design principles to make legal documents and services more user-friendly and understandable. This relatively new discipline has the potential to fundamentally change the legal industry and brings numerous benefits for both lawyers and clients.

Increased user-friendliness

Legal design makes it possible to develop legal documents that are not only effective in their functionality, but also highly user-friendly. This method builds a bridge between legal accuracy and user-orientation, which significantly improves the accessibility and usability of legal documents.

Improved communication and transparency

The above excursus shows that if designers place the needs of the users of systems and applications at the centre of their considerations, something very useful and intuitive can emerge. So what can lawyers learn from designers and what are the benefits of combining the two professions? Contextual thinking, collaboration, understanding problems, quality of results and appearance.

On this basis, people are enabled to act autonomously and not - as is often the case now - to feel dependent. This makes it easier to deal with law in general and then law can even be fun.

Legal design is still a relatively new discipline in Germany, which can be subdivided into the following areas: Legal Service Design, Legal Product Design and Embed Legal in Product (and Service) Design.

Design Thinking

Design thinking is a central method in legal design. It is an iterative process that aims to solve complex problems by focussing on the needs of the users. By applying design thinking, legal services and products can be made more user-friendly. The process comprises several phases:

  1. Understanding: Researching and analysing user needs.
  2. Define: Clearly formulating the problem.
  3. Brainstorming: Developing creative solutions.
  4. Prototyping: Creation of prototypes to visualise the solutions.
  5. Testing: Checking and adapting the prototypes based on user feedback.

Prototyping and Testing

Prototyping and testing are essential tools in legal design. By creating prototypes, ideas can be quickly visualised and tested. This makes it possible to obtain feedback from users at an early stage and adapt the solutions accordingly. Prototyping helps to make abstract concepts tangible and to test their feasibility.

Legal design plays a central role in modern contract drafting. Integrating design principles into legal documents significantly improves comprehensibility, efficiency and compliance.

Improved comprehensibility: Traditional contracts are often complex and difficult to understand. Legal design ensures that legal documents are designed in such a way that they are easier to understand for all parties involved. This can reduce misunderstandings and disputes.

Increased efficiency: The clarity and user-friendliness of legally designed documents accelerate contract negotiations and conclusions. This saves time and resources for all parties.

Improved compliance: Contracts that are clear and understandable increase the likelihood that all parties understand and honour their obligations and rights. This can improve compliance with legal regulations and reduce the risk of breaches of contract.

The targeted use of visual elements such as diagrams, icons and colour coding makes it possible to present complex legal content clearly and comprehensibly. These design features significantly reduce the time it takes to understand a contract. They also help to avoid misunderstandings and improve communication between the contracting parties.

Integration of end users

At the centre of legal design is an unambiguous focus on the perspective of the end user. The primary goal of this approach is to create legal content that is universally understandable - regardless of the legal background of the parties involved. By focussing on the requirements and understanding of the end user, Legal Design ensures that contracts are not only more accessible, but also more effective in their practical implementation.

Feedback mechanisms

A key component of user-centred design is the continuous collection and integration of feedback. Regular feedback allows weaknesses to be identified and rectified before they lead to major problems. This not only promotes user-friendliness, but also user confidence in the legal system.

Challenges and solutions

Despite the many advantages, there are also challenges when implementing legal design. One of the biggest hurdles is acceptance within the traditional legal sector. Many lawyers are sceptical about new methods and techniques. To overcome this challenge, it is important to offer training programmes and workshops that demonstrate the benefits and possible applications of legal design. Another approach is to involve end users in the design process to ensure that the solutions developed actually meet the needs of the users.

Technological developments

Technological development plays a central role in the future of legal design. New technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain offer innovative opportunities to optimise and automate legal processes. These technologies can help to significantly increase the efficiency and accuracy of contract drafting.

Legal design has the potential to fundamentally change the legal sector. By making legal services and products more accessible through the integration of design thinking and user-centred approaches, client satisfaction is increased as well as being easier to understand.

Some of the key developments and trends that could shape the future of legal design include

  • Expanded use of AI to analyse and create contracts
  • Blockchain technology to ensure transparency and security in legal processes
  • Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to visualise complex legal issues

Training programmes and workshops

Unfortunately, there are currently hardly any opportunities for students in Germany to learn about legal design properly. It is neither part of the legal curriculum nor are there any courses offered at universities. Legal design requires skills in the fields of law and design. If you only have one of the two qualifications, it is worth working collaboratively. Of course, the skills of designers can be adapted in the context of law - design thinking, which is already used across industries, also offers an ideal set of tools for this.

Role of universities and universities of applied sciences

Universities and universities of applied sciences play a decisive role in the dissemination of legal design. The integration of legal design into academic education could lead to better comprehensibility and efficiency in the legal sector in the long term. However, there is still a lot of potential for the integration of legal design into academic programmes. Some universities have started to offer legal design sessions in which students from the fields of law and IT work together. These interdisciplinary workshops are a step in the right direction to prepare the next generation of lawyers and designers for the demands of the modern legal world.

Conclusion

Legal design represents a significant development in contract drafting by combining legal precision with user-friendly design. The interdisciplinary collaboration between lawyers and designers results in legal documents that are not only legally flawless, but also understandable and accessible for the user. This leads to greater efficiency and better comprehensibility of contracts, which ultimately contributes to a fairer and more effective legal world. The application of legal design principles shows that the law should encompass not only the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’ in order to be truly effective.